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At the start of August, I was quite happy to see an email in my inbox saying I had made the shortlist for the next Influenster Canada VoxBox. I had to complete a prequalification survey to ensure I was a “perfect” match. About over a week later, I got an email saying I was accepted in the program (yay!). I received the box at the end of that week, last Friday to be exact. Here’s what was in it:

So I wanted to give it a couple of uses before reviewing the product. I dyed my hair in June, but there was bleach involved in the process and I can see and feel the damage. I had to be very careful what type of shampoo and conditioner I used since then. So first of all I always love Garnier Fructis shampoos’ smell, and this was no exception. I find myself grabbing my hair and smelling it haha, so if you love fresh fruity smells, this won’t deceive you. I think it’s hard to say if the product really protected my color since my hair color’s been done a little while ago and the fading has already taken place, but it does make my hair feel very soft and healthy!! It’s a great product.

I’ve tried not using the Heat Protect & Shine Spray for a day to see if it does make a difference. The answer is it does: My hair definitely felt healthier, shinier and softer with it. This is a spray I’d use everyday before blow-drying my hair, I can see a valuable difference. It also really diminishes the frizz.

I hope I do get picked in future Influenster’s campaigns, because that was fun!!

Disclaimer: I received these products from Influenster Canada for review and testing purposes. All opinions are my own.

About 2 weeks ago, I received a nice box from Shopper’s Drug Mart with 2 Unilever sample in it. They were having this program a month ago, called “30 Ways to Beautiful Hair”, which is now closed.

The first sample I want to talk about is the TRESemmé Fresh Start Volumizing Dry Shampoo. At first glance, I thought it was hair spray so I wasn’t really interested. But after looking at it, I noticed it was dry shampoo – yay!! I have the kind of hair that has to be washed DAILY or it gets oily quite fast. Dry shampoo is a great addition for me because sometimes I just want to quickly run an errand and I don’t want to take an hour to wash and dry my hair. With this, I can simply spray it in my hair, comb it through and here it is I’m ready to leave the house within 10 minutes. Now, what did I think about the product itself? The smell is great, it smells even more shampoo-like than other dry shampoo brands I tried before. It spreads well and the white color disappears easily.

If you ask me if I would buy this: YES. Every time I try a dry shampoo it reminds me that I really need dry shampoo in my life.

I would shelve this book as mystery, thriller and horror. The prologue was a few pages long and creeped me out, with no violence or blood. I knew this book was going to be scary. I’m someone who doesn’t watch scary movies, because I get scared to the point where I will have to leave a light on at night, even if I know it’s all fake and in a movie. Now, 1 week after finished reading it, I still leave my lights on. I never thought a book could actually scare me. Moving on..

The book starts with the apparent suicide of a 24 years old woman who is the daughter of a horror movie director. This director in question did not make public appearance for 30 years, and there seems to be something going on, that no one can understand. You follow a journalist that tries to figure out what happened to the woman, and what ‘hides’ under the director. That’s all I’m going to be saying about the plot, because this is something you want to read without knowing spoilers.

I felt this book got me quite hooked on the story and I could barely keep the book down, until the last 200-300 pages. This book is 600 pages, and I didn’t felt like there were unnecessary parts of the plot, but that there were unnecessary writing added to the plot. I thought the book was well paced at first and there was no superfluous writing, but the more the story advanced, as you want to know more of the critical story points, you are loaded with extra information. That kind of frustrated me in a way that I was hooked on the story and really wanted to know what was happening, and although I guess I understood why some of those extra writing were there, there were too many of them. Investigation leads always happening at the good moment, hearing the story retold a few times by different characters, I felt some weakness in the writing there. I also spotted quite a few grammatical errors, and the use of italic was a bit overwhelming. All in all, that didn’t kept the book from being really good.

Something I quite enjoyed was the use of pictures, social media pages (like websites) that were used throughout the book. These were nice additions that I quite appreciated. You can see that the author putted a lot of effort on this book.

To conclude, I recommend this book to anyone who wants to read something out of the ordinary, something ”horrific”, interesting and be on the edge of their seat. I actually just gave my copy to one of my friends because I was telling her she would enjoy it.

I received a deluxe sample of Lancôme’s new Gloss In Love from their Facebook (www.facebook.com/LancomeCanada) where we had the occasion to answer a ”Quiz of Love” in order to get an instant win deluxe sample.

You had to answer several multiple choices questions (A or B) and then they would determine the shade you would win, if you were picked as an instant winner. Turns out that the way I answered got me the ”Under the Spotlight” shade. I don’t think I’m a ”spotlight” person, and flashy colors are not my thing, but I’m not going to fight for a free Lancôme product!

When I received it, I was astounded to how pink the gloss was. I just applied a little bit, and the color was really vibrant on my lips.

I liked how easily it was to apply this gloss. I suppose I am not a big fan of gloss because gloss + long hair + wind does not equal fun. How I wear it is after applying it, I will smack my lips together on a piece of paper, so that my lips are less sticky.

Thanks Lancôme for this product. For reading this article, if you are interested, here’s a code I was given for free shipping on Gloss In Love at Lancome.ca until September 1st 2013. (LOVEYOURLIPS)

I received this book through Goodreads giveaway. The cover image, the blurb on the back of the book and the title made me want to devour this book. This book is shelved as a psychological thriller / mystery book. In the blurb, we get a good idea that it is about a relationship involving a murder, the wife being the murderer. How it happens? That’s what we want to know.

This book was easy to get hooked on, and also knowing that a murder was going to happen made me want to keep reading for more all the time. The story is about a couple in their 40s living in Chicago in a beautiful apartment, living an ‘almost normal’ life, at first. The more you get to know the characters, the more you see how different they are. The book chapters alternate views between ‘Her’ side of the story and ‘His’ side of the story. That was something quite captivating about this novel, because I was always looking forward to knowing the view of the other character on the series of events. The story advances either way, and the author let’s you know clearly how events had impacted the character.

She is a psychologist, he is a building contractor. She is very smart, analyzes a lot, is very organized, but she keeps all of feelings inside. He acts on impulse, takes risks (that turns out good – most of the time?), outgoing, but is a cheater. The more I was reading, the more I was wanting her to actually kill him. It’s not that he is that bad, but after a while, their relationship annoys you. The characters are well thought, but I wanted to give them both a little kick in the butt.

Would I recommend this book? Yes, definitely. It is well written, well paced, and the story is good. Despite those characters, I’m happy to have read it.

This morning, I woke up at 3:42 am with the sound of my cellphone. This is unusual for me, because usually I don’t wake up, or I just don’t look at it, but I felt I had to. My best friend texted me : ”My father is dead, this is the worst day of my life, I don’t know what to do”.

I was freaking out. It couldn’t be true, I saw her father a week before. He was such a nice man. So I answered saying ”Tell me this is a joke”. As I was waiting for the answer, I was looking online if there was any news about it. Yeah that was silly, but my heart was beating fast and I couldn’t accept it.

My eyes kept closing even though I couldn’t think of anything else because it did was late. Then I received her answer ”Not at all, Karine. My heart is crushed. He will never be able to see my kids”. I couldn’t believe it. I still can’t. He loved his children so much. He had his own electric company. He lived a loyal life. How could this happen? He was only 57.

What is even worse in all this, is that tomorrow is her birthday. She had planned a party, and I had planned a big surprise for her. I need to go pick up a book i prepared her today, and I had wrote the name of her father in it. We were talking about that yesterday and saying how we couldn’t wait for that to happen. And in a few hours, all life changed. How can it happen so fast?

When I woke up this morning, it hitted me. Like this is the reality. I can’t imagine how she must feel. It’s so hard for me to see her in that situation, and not be able to do anything about it. I feel there is so much I could tell her, words go through my mind, but when I message her, nothing comes up. It’s like I can’t find words to express how I feel. Today she’s going to wake up and have to face that reality, and I pray God that she will be ok. She loved her father so much. She admired him, she always told me how he helped her, giving her money on the side, taking her side, etc. How must it feel for her mother?

Life really hangs by a thread. This morning I told my parents about it and they couldn’t believe it. My mother was almost crying how much it was touching her heart. When I drove to work, I was crying, because of the fact he was dead, but also imagining my friend and her mother in that situation.

Death can touch so many people. I still can’t believe it. God help us.

I already had that mascara before, and I liked it. I feel it’s mascara that does not clump, that doesn’t create smudges and that can easily be put evenly on the lashes.What is important to know about this mascara is that you have to apply it several times so that it gives a ”seable” result. And applying several times a mascara is what makes it dangerous to create clumps, but that’s the beauty of it: the applicator helps disperse the lashes.

All in all, I think this is a good mascara to wear everyday, for a more casual look. If you are looking for a dramatic look, you might want to try something more intense.